Granta's once-a-decade list of rising novelists is more important than ever

In an increasingly crowded book market, this list of Who will be Who matters to readers because, on the whole, it has got things right.

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The year 2013 is partly going to be one of anniversarycelebrations – Verdi, Wagner, Britten. But more interestingly, it’sgoing to be a year when we’ve found a way of looking into thefuture of creativity, too. The literary magazine Granta is going toproduce its once-a-decade list of British novelists under 40. Itwill be the fourth one since 1983, and just now a generation ofhopefuls is quaking in its boots. It matters; it genuinely matters;and it matters because, on the whole, this list has got thingsgenerally right.

Before 1983, the promotion of novelists was a haphazard,
gentlemanly sort of affair. A publisher might recommend a young
novelist to a literary editor, they might acquire a readership, an
interview or two might take place, and a small lecture tour of
foreign parts, sponsored by the kindly British Council. Literary
festivals and creative writing courses were foreign curiosities;
the Booker Prize, until very recently, used to be that thing that
Olivia Manning always got so cross over not winning.

The wonderfully named British Book Marketing Council, at the
turn of the 1980s, had the bright idea of packaging up the best
living British writers for promotion, regardless of age. The result
was very distinguished, but perhaps not terribly sexy – John
Betjeman, Laurie Lee, V.S. Pritchett turned out. It had some effect
– I remember reading a very superior article in The Sunday Times,
laughing at readers who routinely confused Gerald Durrell (not
listed) with his brother Lawrence (listed). At 15, that would have
been me.

In 1983, the Council teamed up with the tyro magazine Granta,
and produced what undoubtedly was a sexy list. It made the radical
decision to limit the list to novelists under the age of 40 – not
new novelists, but ones who were born after 1943. That has always
seemed arbitrary to me. Many great novelists don’t get started
until middle life. One of the greatest of modern British novelists,
Penelope Fitzgerald, didn’t start publishing until she was 60.
Women, in particular, have often found children delaying their
writing career.

Still, it took the imagination of a reading public. It did so
not through hype, but because the judges of the 1983, 1993 and 2003
lists have been proved to be excellent judges of talent. (OK,
declaration of interest – I was on the 2003 list, though whether I’v
e since fallen into the ‘fulfilled’ or ‘sad let-down’ categories is
for someone else to say.) Many of the names on the lists were not,
at the time, in command of the huge readerships and critical
acclaim that subsequently came their way. Rose Tremain, Kazuo
Ishiguro – the author of only one novel at the time – Will Self,
Monica Ali, Hari Kunzru and others were identified when they were
not easy or popular choices. Notoriously, one journalist remarked
of the 1993 lists, “But who is Louis de Bernières?”

Of course, there are some names on all three lists who didn’t
fulfil their talent, or who haven’t so far. But it’s difficult to
find one who was identified for no good reason. Ursula Bentley,
from the first list, didn’t become a famous novelist before she
died in 2004, but the novel that put her on that list, The Natural
Order, is a perfect joy. More problematically, the lists have
undeniably failed to identify some major talents; the power of the
Granta imprimatur has meant some very good writers have had a
harder path in life. It has, undeniably, its biases away from genre
and popular novels. Douglas Adams could and should have been on the
first list, Sebastian Faulks and Robert Harris on the second, China
Miéville on the third, and maybe even J.K. Rowling, too.

I was among 2003’s chosen ones – but am I in
the ‘fulfilled’ or ‘sad let-down’ category?

It has, though, avoided the overvaluing of “significance” which
has made the Booker, in recent years, such a poor identifier of
literary value, let alone literary promise. The judges have seemed
to enjoy brio, schwung and pizazz, and, mirabile dictu, comedy in
whatever shape it comes, whether Martin Amis, Helen Simpson, or
Nicola Barker. Brio, unlike the decision to write a long dull novel
about a historical genocide, is a quality that tends to last. What
is great about these lists is they successfully identify writers
who, at the right age, are exulting in sentences, literary form,
and even individual words, not ones who think, like any boring blog
writer, that they have something to say.

Last time round, I thought there were probably 10 names that
would have gone without much debate, and another 10 that might have
been them, or someone else entirely. After 10 years, I think the
panel got much more right than wrong – well, I would say that, and
I’m very grateful for the boost, but I couldn’t name 10 authors who
should have been there and were snubbed.

This year, it’s much the same. There are 10 names who I’m sure
are already there, and 10 who are going to be fought over. My
10 dead certs are Jon McGregor, Zadie Smith, Ned Beauman, Ross
Raisin, Joe Dunthorne, Sarah Hall, Adam Foulds, Samantha Harvey,
Nick Laird, and Paul Murray. The next 10, I guess, will be Stuart
Neville, Naomi Alderman, Evie Wyld, Neel Mukherjee, Courttia
Newland, Tahmima Anam, Owen Sheers, Helen Walsh, Alex Preston, and
Gwendoline Riley. I think the judges will pass over A.D. Miller and
Stephen Kelman, relics of the worst Booker shortlist ever in 2011,
and generously reward a novelist whose first novel still sits in
typescript, unknown to you or me.

The accurate gaze forward is what the judges have to embody; it’s
been done before, but it’s going to be quite a challenge.